The Formation Of The Narrative Of "the Line Struggle" Within The Communist Party Of China (1940-1945)

The early leaders of the CCP,such as Qu Qubai,had special discussions on the history of the CCP,and during the Yan’an Rectification campaign,Mao Zedong also made a systematic and comprehensive theoretical and methodological introduction on how to study the history of the CCP,which was unique to Mao’s study of the history of the CCP as a "line" compared to the narrative mode of the early leaders.The political discourse of the "struggle between the two lines" has had a profound impact on the writing of the history of the CCP and the development of the CCP itself.There is a fundamental difference between the "struggle between the two lines" during the Yan’an Rectification Movement and the "struggle between the two lines" of the "Sovietists" and the "struggle between the two lines" during the Cultural Revolution.the "struggle between the two lines" was a major creation of Mao Zedong in constructing the historical narrative of the CCP.As an important political discourse,the narrative of the "struggle between the two lines" not only made the CCP successfully and thoroughly liquidate the third "leftist" error in the Party politically,but also firmly established the correct guiding line of the CCP leadership with Mao Zedong as its main symbol theoretically.The correct guiding line of the CCP leadership,with Mao Zedong as the main symbol,was firmly established in theory,thus speeding up the political process of Marxism’s Chinesization.However,the establishment of such a set of historical narratives recognized by the whole Party did not happen overnight,from the idea of compiling the "Party Book" in 1940 to the introduction of The Two Lines in 1943 and the finalization of the " Resolution to some Historical Issues of the CCP ",Mao’s political discourse of "the struggle between the two lines" has undergone a historical development process from scattered and vague to gradually clear.Based on the historical fact that Mao Zedong presided over the editing of "Party Book" as the core clue,this paper traces back to his "editing behavior" of sorting out,screening and arranging historical texts of Chinese Communist Party history in the specific historical situation of Yan ’an Rectification Movement.On the basis of the existing research,this paper relies on the original documents such as the 1981 edition of Since The Sixth Congress-Secret Documents of the Party,the 1952 edition of Catalogue of Sixth Congress-Secret Documents of the Party and the 1941 edition of Catalogue of Selected Documents since the Sixth Congress.The 1941 edition of Since the Sixth Congress-Secret Documents of the Party was restored to its original form.By combining the 1941 edition of Since the Sixth Congress-Secret Documents of the Party and the 1942 edition of Before the Sixth Congress-Catalogue of the Party’s Historical Materials(upper volume)and the 1943 edition of The Two Lines,we analyze the editor’s intention and historical significance through a specific examination of the changes in the texts of the "Three Great Party Books" and discuss the formation process of the narrative of the " struggle between two lines " within the Chinese Communist Party.The basic conclusion of this paper is that,after the editing of the three major "Party Books" and the launch of the Yan’an Rectification Study History Movement,Mao Zedong constructed a narrative model of Party history as a "struggle between two lines" based on the full absorption and reflection of the "line struggle" discourse of Communist Party of USSR and Wang Ming and the "Returned Students group".